Month: February 2008

My spectacles slid and fell off the table, I felt I had enough time to break the fall but somehow my feet didn’t move. The result was a crack in the left lens. It cracks easily because I had chosen glass lens for cleaner vision compared to plastic ones.

So I brought it back to the shop where I got it made and it costs SG$80 (57USD) to replace it.

Then next thing that happened, I was playing “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” on my NDS on the way home from work. Then suddenly the touchscreen just stopped working. It could detect that the screen was being tapped on but it couldn’t detect the exact position of the tapping.

I don’t mind buying the new NDS lite (which currently costs SGD$230) but I hate the idea of having a spare NDS lying around being a paperweight. I’ve checked with a game shop in my area. It would cost less than SGD$90 to fix it but it will take as long as 1 month. Time isn’t a problem as I can just play on my PSP. Or even better, if I manage to sell it away, I’ll get an NDS lite right away.

Oh well… I’ve put up an ad on one of the local gaming forums. Let’s see how it goes…

By the way, “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” is fun, challenging puzzles and nice BGM.

After playing PLD for a while, I’ve decided to move on and try other things. I’ve finally tried a bit of shadow tanking on Suzaku and Seiryu and I guess it went well.

Of course it went well. Because most of the time, the hate went to the other 2 tanks, lol. I was too anxious I didn’t hit my equip switch macros. My attention was totally focused on timing my utsusemi casting and curing myself. >_<

Then to make kiting easier, I’ve also decided to go for the crimson cuisses that give +12% movement speed. After like 4 or 5 kirins, it finally dropped for me.

Ignore the Osode, I was just temporarily holding onto it.

At first, I passed on these so others could make better use of it. It doesn’t
matter if I get it or not because no matter who gets it, the LS grows stronger.

And just for trivia, this cursed cuisses -1 was entirely funded from about a month or two of selling Fish Mithkabobs! Haha!

Z took a day off from work to join me today, so I planned to visit Nikko(日光) which is closer to Z’s hometown compared to places in Tokyo.

Using my JR Rail pass, I rode on the shinkansen again but this time, towards north to Utsunomiya(宇都宮). We’ve agreed to meet there, at the Nikko line’s platform. Sharing the train cabin with us, were a group of Singaporeans, all of them women in their early 40s. I could tell from their Singaporean accent and them speaking in a mix of English and Hokkein.

I can’t remember but it took about an hour’s ride to Nikko. After getting off, we walked towards the Nikko National park, stopping halfway at a family restaurant for lunch, then continued again to our first destination, the Shinkyo bridge (神橋).

Again, it wasn’t what I expected, haha. Damn travel guides make places look so good but when you get there, it’s totally different.

I expected a quiet place, but it turned out to be busy with tourists.

To “walk” on the bridge, you have to pay. I found this rather stupid so I didn’t pay to enter. Just looking at it from another bridge next to it is satisfying enough.

From here, we took a bus uphill. The road up was featured in Initial D I think. It was called “Japan Romantic Road”. A lot of turns and very steep. I could feel the “cotton” building up in my eardrums as we ascended.

We went to see Kegon Taki (華厳滝), Kegon waterfall. I think this is the first time in my entire life to see and hear and actual waterfall. We walked around some of the shops here. I wanted to try out some Dango but was a little too late. They just sold out. :/

I grabbed this medallion from one machine and had it engraved on another machine just next to it.

Then we took the bus back to the Nikko station where Z and I parted ways. It is the last time we could see each other.

I made my way back to Tokyo, and since I had time, I went to Akihabara again for the third time. Shopped for anime goods again and had dinner at a French restaurant.

Then I decided to try accessing the 3G network here on my phone and managed to chat with a friend for a while. I checked my emails to find a mail sent to me from another Japanese friend whom I’ve also known through FFXI. It was good timing because she gave me some advice travelling in Kyoto, which I was going to visit the very next day.